Skill at stick-handling is essential for an athlete who participates in the sport of hockey. One of the exercises which is often used to improve an athlete's skill in this regard is to arrange a large number of pucks in a line on a sheet of ice. The athlete then hits one puck at a time into a net which is guarded by a goal tender. The goal tender attempts to block the pucks in order to prevent them from entering the net while the athlete attempts to aim the pucks where the goal tender will not be able to stop them. The exercise serve to improve the athlete's hand-eye coordination which is essential for stick-handling.
At the end of the exercise there are a number of pucks on the sheet of ice and they must be gathered from the ice and placed in a receptacle for reuse. The task of gathering the pucks requires a considerable amount of stooping or bending of the back.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,719,340 issued on Apr. 13, 2004 describes a retriever for pucks which in use, substantially eliminates the need for stooping or bending in order to gather pucks on a sheet of ice. The retriever includes an elongated tube having bristles on the inside wall adjacent to the lower end of the tube. When the tube is placed over a puck so that the bristles come into contact with it, the bristles retain the puck within the tube. A number of pucks can be picked up in this manner. The pucks within the tube form a stack until the tube is turned upside down when the pucks fall out of the open upper end of the tube.
The puck retriever described in the above patent has a number of shortcomings, one of which is that some skill and a significant amount of time are required to attach the bristles to the inside wall of the tube in such a way that they are effective for the picking up of pucks. Another shortcoming is that the bristles, with repeated use, weaken and eventually break. Once broken the puck retriever is not reliable in picking up a puck or in retaining it in the tube once it has been picked up.
The puck retriever of the subject invention substantially overcomes these shortcomings. Rubber instead of bristles is used to pick up the pucks. The rubber is in one piece and can easily and quickly be attached to the retriever. Furthermore the rubber has a much longer useful life than bristles. Repeated use of the subject retriever will have little detrimental effect on the effectiveness of the device unlike the device described in the above patent where repeated use will have a decided detrimental effect on its effectiveness.
Briefly, the puck retriever of the subject invention comprises: a tube having upper and lower ends and a hollow interior of diameter larger than that of a puck. A number of resiliently deformable flaps are formed on the lower end of the tube. The flaps have inner edges which together define a circular inlet of diameter smaller than that of the puck. The flaps flex upward when pressed downward against a puck which is resting on a flat surface with resulting enlargement of the inlet sufficient to allow the puck to pass through the inlet. The flaps however are of sufficient strength to resist flexing downward under the weight of any pucks within the tube such that the flaps prevent any pucks within the tube from exiting through the inlet.
Like reference characters refer to like parts throughout the description of the drawings.